Character Development/Talent Trees/Stat Points

So as far as I can see character development is pretty plain. (Get to this level and buy this slightly better skill) it is dull and doesn't leave me excited about leveling. Lack of Class, profession and skill talent trees. Also a lack of distributive stat points every other 5 levels of progression or so. Only way to power your character up is to find and craft the currently best gear in the game. So a few ideas for some class talent trees. A good example of some talent trees or the basic UI of one is the one they have in 'Dungeons and Dragons Online'.
Something like this, you start with a core talent at the bottom usually passive, some times toggle and clickie(note that passives are octagon shapped, and toggles and clickies are square shaped). You have to spend a point on the first core ability to unlock the 1st tier of the tree, and to unlock the 2nd tier of the tree you must spend x amount of points in the 1st tier and so on to unlock 3rd, 4th and 5th tiers. With a need of accumulative points spent to unlock and get the 2,3,4,5 core talents as well. Getting 5th tier would lock the 5th tier of other trees. There would be a hard cap on talent points. With the option of building some points in other talent trees. 5th tier in talent trees should be special and define the purpose of the character. Say your a rogue and your purpose is assassination 5th tier should contain some passives and a toggle or clickie that would make their assassination abilities useful and/or actionable. Each class should have a minimum of 3 talent trees for example a cleric can have a healing tree, a dps tree, or a buffing tree. You can only have one 5th tier on any given tree but may have points in most and some of all other trees. This is a good place to start for talent trees I think.

Thanks for the post! We agree that there needs to be more in terms of character development. While we purposefully didnt add talent tress to the level progression we do intend to have a "endgame" level progression similar to what you have there (also similar to DAOC Realm abilities). If you have ideas for what you would like to see there (specific abilities as general or on classes) let us know as we will probably begin to implement development on that by end of Nov.

Rogues, lacking poisons some kind of toggle or temporary weapons buff. Would also be nice to see a talent tree that would morph and change the poison to have different effects like paralyzing, weakening, slowing, confusion, subjugation.

Champions, Shield Wall I only some times find it useful. I don't really enjoy the fact that it is immobile, would be awesome if it moved with the champion maybe even taunting foes to attack it. Champions have a lesser heal, and a chance to instantly kill the un-dead on hit(so it is safe to assume they are paladin like?) maybe an aura ability toggle that gives allies defense, or if they attack all aggro will go to champion.

Wizards, for one I am a wizard fan it is usually the first class I make in any game as such. They lack some elements but one would be over whelmed if you added an ability for every element, my tab key would break. I propose a system of development for mages that lets them choose which element they want to use instead of having a bunch of abilities that will end up not even being used(I doubt I have used every spell in Skyrim).

Clerics, I would like to see their buff abilities turned into AoE, not single target(probably wishful thinking). They have no escape from stun, sleep, paralyze which often causes party wipe. They need a self rez of some kind(not everyone carries raise dead scrolls).

Rangers, they need a disengage ability where it removes their aggro and they jump back. Ability to shoot through a target and hit another target would be aesthetically pleasing even if it is a click ability 'Piercing Shots' a buff even. A talent tree to change the type of damage a ranger does like changing it from piercing to crushing etc. Rangers are also privy to being in tune with nature, possibly a pet that can be controlled to engage and defend the ranger.

Really good points, we have discussed making buffs AoE which would make it easier with the pace the game usually takes. We may implement this. Your other points are good as well. We have some combat revisions coming up and will review abilities again at that time. Cooldowns and possible combo effects have been discussed and we will add these to those comments.

@John
Wait, are you talking like a typical talent tree that unlocks at level 50 and requires something like experience to unlock additional talents? I think class identity is largely non-existent, so I would love something like this.

I never played DAOC, so I'm not sure how their trees worked, but I think you could do a lot with a talent tree in K&H. I would like to see specialization paths you can take once reaching 50, something along the lines of specializing in type of play and then talents focused around that. Think the Cleric becoming a Paladin or becoming a Priest. You wouldn't even need to create new abilities, but could just modify existing ones and layer them with talents.

@Trup Yes this is mainly what I want to see , not a bunch of clickie abilities with CD(to much clickies give tab a headache) but passives in talents that would actively change what a current ability would do. Mostly in terms of damage type, shape, effect etc. instead of adding a bunch of new clickie abilities. Class progression seems like a must in mmo games now days, cleric to paladin or priest sounds allot better then just adding those two as separate classes. I think progression into a job(tank, trapper, healer, dps etc.) should be spread through out the leveling of a character and not just all at once, once a player hits level 50. It would be fine as long as there was never a level cap increase, would the jobs be available at level 50 or the new cap after a cap increase? I suspect they would also need to have a re-spec system in place to change your job if one finds a job they picked unpleasant/ not enjoyable.

Right, I would envision it having a core class modification, core ability modifications, and then passive talents that augment those changes.

So using the Cleric as an example, choosing to specialize as a Paladin would give you some flat bonuses. Something like +10% maximum health, +10% armor, and 50% of your spell power is added as melee power.

Then you would modify their core abilities, so in the tree it would have Smite, and the first unlock would be to change Smite into a melee ability that did something. Then it would have some passive talents around it.

The talent tree could have a section dedicated to core class changes, such as improved armor or resistances or blocking or whatever, and then more dedicated paths around each skill. You could choose for Smite to brand the target, dealing 25% of your spell power as Holy Damage over 8 seconds that stacks, or for Smite to cleave targets in front of you, hitting up to two additional targets for 80% damage. The next row could be increasing the dot, or giving it the ability to jump targets. Cleave could gain a snare or heal you for 5% of the damage done.

And they wouldn't need to increase the level cap. Just increase the talent system. More ranks, new talents, things like that. They could start with 4 or 5 ability changes, and then roll out updates that change a few more. So you'd get an "expansion" that changed group heal for the Paladin to an active ability that redirected damage from the group to them.